And So It Begins…

This is a pretty momentous day for me. Today is the day I sent my novel A Shadow Over Ever off to a friend to be edited. This is the first big step I have taken with the novel in quite some time and it feels great. This is a novel that began as a short story back in 1994 when it was published in a magazine some friends and I were doing at the time. After that it grew to a sequel story, to a third story that rounded it out to novella length and then I finally let it be what it was and finished a fourth part and let it be the novel it always was meant to be.

Phew.

I love this book. Truly, madly, and deeply. It was, until I wrote The Meep Sheep my favorite work I had done. It is funny, it is sad, it is scary, it is deep, and it is ridiculous. It is the story of a man who had only and always wanted to be left alone yet who is forced into saving a world he no longer feels a part of anymore. I put a lot of work into this thing and know that there is a lot of work yet to come. I have edited it three times in the past and it needs new eyes, fresh eyes to find the errors in grammar and, more importantly, in the story itself. Soon, much sooner than I can imagine, I will be able to get it out into the world though, and that’s pretty great.

This had been intended to be the novel that I was to have published traditionally, that had been my hope for it, but I had tried that course for years and could keep trying to no avail. I am not sure if my query letters were poorly written, if I choose the wrong agents or publishers, or if I just wasn’t able to convey what this book is (something I still struggle with – theosophical horror? Hmm?) but the time has come for it to move past the ‘sitting in a drawer’ phase.

So, it’s begun, the next step on what has been a long road for this book. I am still far from the finish, but it is closer to being more than something I and a very small handful of people have read. Soon it will be out there in the world, and that knowledge feels pretty great.

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Master of Scaremonies

Chris Ringler is an author, blogger, artist, and creator of odd events living in Flint, Michigan. He began writing as a teenager and has received two honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, has been featured in BareBone, Horrible Disasters, Horror Addicts Guide to Life,and Cthulhu Sex Magazine, and won Best In Blood on HorrorAddicts.com.

Look to the sky, find the darkest point, and that my friends is where you can find him…when he isn’t dropping beats with mermen.